#8 Rey Mysterio Vs. JBL – WrestleMania 25
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WrestleMania squash matches are risky affairs. If they work, they end up leaving the crowd feeling shocked and begging for more if done badly, you will just end up ruining your biggest show of the year. The Intercontinental Championship match between Rey Mysterio and JBL thankfully falls into the first category.
This match was pretty historic for two reasons. Firstly, it marked the first time the IC Championship was defended on a WrestleMania card for seven years. Between WrestleMania 18 in 2002 and WrestleMania 25 in 2009, the IC belt was nowhere to be seen, which is a shocking statistic when you think about how important the belt used to be.
The match is also the very last singles match JBL ever had. Bradshaw was coming off the heels of quite a long time in WWE’s main event scene and went into the show as a rather unpopular IC Champion. On paper, Mysterio was very much the underdog, but he proved almost everyone wrong in a matter of seconds.
Mysterio attacked JBL as soon as the bell rung, taking the champion by surprise. A 619 and big slash later, and a new IC Champion was crowned. This marked the start of a very impressive reign which involved a fantastic rivalry between Rey and Chris Jericho later that year.
Perhaps it was a pretty unceremonious way for the career of JBL to end, but it did help restore some credibility to the IC belt and gave fans something to cheer about on what was a pretty disappointing Mania show.
